First of all, here’s that Harley Quinn in color. Ain’t she cute? People still seem to like it now that it’s in color so I guess I didn’t screw it up. Some like the shine effects on the fabric, but I tried to avoid making it look like she’s wearing a catsuit made of Heinz ketchup and an oil slick. Clicking this link will let you see Harley with the alternate face that I mentioned before. I was seriously thinking of Stimpy the cat when I drew that face but decided to draw her with the face that’s in the main picture but a Google Image Search for more costume reference turned up a DCAU Batman cover with her making that same cartoony face. Correction: whoever drew that cover did it right and I botched it. All of it was still fun to do.

If you felt a disturbance in the universe on Friday night, that’s my fault. For the first time ever, I managed to find a Ground-Zero Entertainment kung-fu flick on DVD that didn’t crash during the movie or Wu-Tang video, show that it was made from a heavily-wrinkled video tape, have their VHS tape player’s menu screen pop up in the middle of the movie or just burst into flame for no good reason. I’m still shocked that I was able to watch everything on it. The movie, Return of the Deadly Blade starring Yasuaki Kurata & David Chiang, was an okay flick for the $3 that I paid Big Lots for it. Not great, but not horrible. The bonus music video was for “Chessboxing” and is worth at least $1 by itself. There’s a lot of other short bits like trailers, actor bios and a video of Poppa Wu droppin’ knowledge while playing chess. I think I’ll go back to giving Ground-Zero more of a chance after this one.

The main cleaning account that I’m working now has an actual break in it. Due to that, I started bringing a small notebook and pencil with me to catch any mental droppings that roll off my brain. I seem to get a lot more ideas and my creative flow is stronger than it was when I was doing two break-less accounts. Back then, I’d have dozens of stray ideas a week but could only remember a few by the time I got back home. Now I’m sketching out all kinds of random stuff including character redesigns, poses and even lettering pixel widths for future mini-logos. I feel some sort of mental momentum happening. With any luck, that’ll lead speeding up my drawing time and getting more work done.

So this Friday night I channel-surfed smack dab into AMC’s Fear Friday. I decided to watch the flick because it had the late, great Calvin Lockhart, the original Biggie Smalls from Let’s Do It Again and the cool elder Rasta in Predator 2. This flick turns out to be The Beast Must Die which also has Peter Cushing in it and there’s no way I could stop watching a flick with those two in it. Lockhart’s character invites a bunch of people to his mansion and then tells the group that he knows that one of the guests is… a werewolf! But who? Who? WHO? I didn’t know at first because it’s just that kind of movie. That’s okay. You see, there’s a designated time and place before the film’s climax to think about it. For those who have never seen it before, allow me to introduce you to…

The werewolf break is a special time in one’s life to reflect upon any and all lycanthropic shenanigans happening around you. Excluding the spooky narration, it lasts no more than 30 seconds, no less than 30 seconds and clocks in at around 30 seconds. It may seem cruel, heartless and unfair, but in this man’s world, you only get half a minute to think about werewolves.

BTW: “lycanthropic” is probably not a word. Move along.

(note: this was a review that I wrote a bit after the Shaw Bros./Dragon Dynasty DVDs hit and I’m too damned lazy to go in a change anything)

So I got the Dragon Dynasty release of One-Armed Swordsman by the Shaw Brothers Studios a little while ago and said I’d ramble about it later. I’ll still probably do one later on, but I have a further need to talk about the 2nd Dragon Dynasty/Shaw Bros. DVD that I bought: the 36th Chamber of Shaolin (also known as ‘Master Killer’). I saw it as a kid on TV (I believe it was USA’s Kung-Fu Theater) and this flick has been a part of me ever since. Sure, some people say that about flicks like Steel Magnolias, It’s a Wonderful Life or Soul Plane. Me? I say that about a Kung-Fu movie and the following is why.

This film takes place during the Qing Dynasty era in China where the invading Manchus ruled over the people with little mercy. Gordon Liu (Johnny Mo from Kill Bill vol. 1 and Pai Mei from Kill Bill vol. 2) plays a young man named San Te who has a teacher that’s part of the underground revolution to fight the Manchus. When he and his group of friends see fallen revolutionary’s body on grisly display in the village and San Te calls him a hero out loud, he’s heard by an official who accuses them of being rebels. The three teens almost catch a beatdown until an elder breaks things up. The experience shakes them up to do just that: join the revolution. It’s there that he sees another member demonstrate the still-secret skill of Shaolin Kung-Fu. Unfortunately, the movement is discovered and the Qing forces start killing off any known revolutionaries, anyone that they think are in it, their family, friends and anyone else the bad luck of being in the way. After escaping the onslaught, San Te makes his way to Shaolin Temple to learn the kung-fu that will let him get revenge on the Qings and free his village. But being a Shaolin monk isn’t about killing. Well, unless you’re playing Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monk where you’re allowed to shove someone’s head down their throat with enough force to make it launch out of their buttcrack and such. Here, not cool. San Te accepts their terms which leads to some of the coolest and insane martial arts training sequences in movie history, period.

Hollywood flicks train heroes by having them chase a rooster in a circle or shine up a car. This is a Shaw Bros. flick directed and choreographed by Hung Gar master and Gordon Liu’s mentor, Liu Chia-Liang (a.k.a. Lau Kar-wing) so all half-stepping is prohibited. Each training sequence is one of the 35 Chambers of Shaolin Kung-Fu skill. There are many reasons why fans geek out over the chambers. For one, each chamber is imaginative, painful looking and difficult. The first chamber is on the way to the chow line. If you don’t learn, you don’t eat! That’s cold-blooded! Even better is that the only way to defeat each one is an equal balance of physical and mental power. Unlike most movies, his training doesn’t just make him a stronger fighter, but a better human being. That’s deep.. Of course, he still goes on to kick large amounts of assflap, but that’s where the other brilliant part comes in. Besides the fact that each fight is filled with skilled martial artists and actors who battle each other with very little wire work or cutting, you will see the actual chamber lessons and skills used in the midst of the fight now matter how trivial they seemed at the time. The chamber that tested how quickly San-Te’s eyes could track an ever-shifting target comes into play and blends into another chamber lesson. Unlike other flicks that awkwardly shoehorn the moments into a plot later in the film (along with a quick flashback just in case you forgot) , the chambers and the Shaolin philosophy form the foundation of San Te’s actions. Yes, all that stuff that the monks talk about is more than just random mumbo-jumbo here. The more that I think about it, the more it makes sense that this was directed by an actual teacher.

This Dragon Dynasty version of the 36th Chamber is from the Celestial remastered print that has a crisp look to it. In other words, this isn’t from some old VHS tape with damage lines rolling through it. Language tracks include Mandarin, Cantonese and the same English track that U.S. Master Killer and Wu-Tang Clan fans know and love. Oh… and the RZA provides commentary along with Andy Klein. As a Wu-Tang fan since the Protect Ya Neck/Method Man single, it was great to hear him drop jewels on Chinese history and point out film-making bits, cameos and trivia. He also brings up a lot of childhood stories about watching this and other flicks that I’m going to devote an entire post to one day. They should get those two to do more commentary for future flicks, because they make a great team. Other treats include a brief documentary on Shaolin and an in-depth interview with Gordon Liu. As much as I enjoyed One-Armed Swordsman’s interview with Jimmy Wang Yu, the Gordon Liu interview was even better. He talks about everything from how Lau Kar-wing took him in as a brother to how people thought that he looked a bit like Yul Brenner after he shaved his head. He seems like he’s having a lot of fun during the interview, too. I’m hoping that Celestial/Dragon Dynasty can get a Lau Kar-Wing as Andy Klein (I think) mentions that the director still does great and lively interviews. Also included are film trailers to this and other movies made by the crew. With the two movies that I have already, Dragon Dynasty does such a great job that they are to Martial Arts films what Anchor Bay is to cult and horror flicks. I never thought I’d see U.S. releases with so much effort put into them, but that’s exaxctly what these are. If you’re looking for mindless violence, this isn’t your flick because they’re are long stretches of time without any actual fights. But if you appreciate martial arts movies that are skillfully done, you’ll be rewarded by those great training scene that help to make the amazing fights even better. I think I’ve rambled enough about it, so buy it or rent it. After all, it’s the closest most people will get to watching a classic kung-fu flick while chilling out with the RZA.

This week’s haul is A LOT bigger than normal because a lot of it was bought a week earlier but arrived this week. It also made up for last week since I spent the weekend in the house trying to recover from a week of dramatic jackassery. Since I was too lazy to take any pictures, I’m going to post this picture of Bat-Hulk laughing like a goon looney. Because he is. Yeah, I scanned that from the Metamorpho Showcase TPB and colored it according to a scan posted on the Comic Treadmill.

T-Shirts: My mother surprised me with two birthday gifts: A Transformers shirt with Optimus Prime and another with Speed Racer. Beautiful stuff.

Comics: the All New Atom #12 (great issue as usual filled with Gail Simone funhappytimes) and Essential Two-in-One starring the Thing vol. 2 (which I guess is filled with Thing-ness). Got two short comic book storage boxes to replace the long box that had Capt. America and Avengers comics in ‘em. After having eight heavy long boxes, I’ve finally got it down to one last long box.

DVDs: Batman and Batman Returns were bought for 50% on Amazon during their big Warner Bros. sale. I’ll add my old barebones Batman Returns DVD to the trade pile to make a lil’ bit of that money back. Today I picked up a DVD double features with 9 Deaths of the Ninja and some other Kosugi-less flick then a disc with Saturn video’s “best” Kung-Fu fights for less than $8 total thanks to Splitstone Entertainment.

Lego: First, the BrickLink order I made came in. For the most part, it was full of parts for that building front that I’m working on as a background for minifigs. I’ll post pics once I get the upgrade done. Then Raijin shows up and gives a gift of the Robo Raptor and this Castle set. that he found cheap at a garage sale. Damn! To top it all off, we stopped a K-Mart hoping that there was another Rogue Knight Battleship on clearance for $8. Nope. It was $2 dollars. Hell, this minifigure from the set probably runs more than that on Bricklink! Lots of nice parts in this set including some nice armor and weapons.

That’s it for this post. Time to watch some flicks and get to work on some random character headshots.

I saw Pirates of the Carribean 3 today and liked it. That “musical” in the beginning? Fun for the entire family! What a way to start the feel-good motion picture of the year! Seriously, it was full of crazy, crabs, the shocking return of a key character, and Pym Particles.

Speaking of Pym Particles, I finally made it to the comic shop and Marvel Adventures - Avengers #13 was a book that I picked up. This book just earned a rare spot on my pull list due to the last three issues being made of complete and decisive win. This issue features the Avengers facing a threat that infects one of their own (guess who?) and they have to go to another someone (again with the guess who) for help. Also in the buy pile was Green Lantern 20 (ha, check out the big brain on Hal!) and Countdown 48 and 49 (it’s getting better and more interesting).

After all the nonsense that happened this week (trust me, you don’t want to hear me whine about it), my ability to draw fell back to what it was during the art lull. Then again, it may have been the lack of sleep doing it. I drew this pic of Metamorpho where the upper body was okay enough, but was a failure from the belt to the badly-drawn feet. Now, what’s weird is that I didn’t see how messed-up they were until after they were drawn, scanned and flat-colored. Actually, I redrew the head to look more Fradon-ish (since I love her art in the Metamorpho Showcase TPB that I’m reading now) and redrew the right leg. Then I redrew both legs. Four times. Each time, no dice. Efforts to redraw the pose completely also failed. I have NOTHING for the Illmosis update tomorrow. Yet.